Getting Out of the Great Indoors

If watching television, playing videogames and fiddling with iDevices were an Olympic triathlon, my 10-year-old daughter would surely take the gold medal. Her 7-year-old brother would take silver.

But research suggests they and other children would benefit from a little less time in the great indoors.

In his Head Case column in Saturday’s Review section, Jonah Lehrer notes that a recent study found that American children ages 8 to 18 spend four hours a day interacting with technology; other research finds that the percentage of children regularly engaging in outdoor recreation fell 15 percentage points between 2006 and 2010. “This shift is occurring even as scientists outline the mental benefits of spending time in natural settings,” Lehrer writes. “…Untamed landscapes have a restorative effect, calming our frazzled nerves and refreshing the tired cortex. After a brief exposure to the outdoors, people are more creative, happier and better able to focus.”